


Unfinished Business

by SBG



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Gen, Humor, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-01
Updated: 2012-11-01
Packaged: 2017-11-17 13:15:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/551959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SBG/pseuds/SBG
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It turned out an apartment wasn't the only thing Mrs. Kekoa wanted to help Danny find.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unfinished Business

**Author's Note:**

> References episode 2.07 (the Halloween episode) and was written for a [Halloween Prompt Meme](http://hawaii5-0slash.livejournal.com/1211476.html) on LJ. Prompt came from [Ilmare_Ilse](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Ilmare_Ilse/pseuds/Ilmare_Ilse): _Mrs. Kekoa (The dead lady from last year's Halloween episode) keeps following Danny around, and now that Danny knows she's actualy dead, he is not dealing with it very well. What the dead lady wants and whether she ever stops haunting Danny is up to the author._
> 
> Cleaned up a little since comment posting. :)

She showed up again on a Tuesday, mid morning. Danny Williams remembered it vividly, and had thanked his lucky stars that HQ was empty at the time. Now that he knew who and more to the point what she was, his reaction might have set a Guinness record for vertical jump due to _what the fucking fuck_ if such a thing existed. He masterfully suppressed and also convinced himself he had fallen asleep at his desk and was simply dreaming. Except she kept coming back during moments he knew he was not in the land of Nod. 

At first she’d drop by only now and then, usually at strange and often inopportune moments. And usually she brought her little dog, too. Once, he’d been stepping out of the shower and she’d been bathroom creeping; she’d assured him she’d seen it all, given him a once over and an _oh my, you are blessed_ before fading into nothing right before his eyes. That wasn’t even the most mortifying visit, but Danny didn’t want to think about that time ever, ever again. 

He didn’t know how she was doing it, was the thing. After a week of sporadic sightings and heart attack scares, Danny took it upon himself to conduct research on the matter. Many experts on the supernatural (what was that even, experts) believed spirits were tied to specific places, a family home, the location at which they came to their untimely demises, and many experts seemed to think these unsettled, make-believe ghosts had unfinished business. Frankly, all his research resulted in was irritation. Danny didn’t want to know what Mrs. Kekoa’s unfinished business was, or why she had apparently latched onto him and gone along for the ride. He just wanted her gone.

At the core of it, he didn’t want to believe she was real. The problem was that if she wasn’t, then that meant he was losing the last vestiges of sanity he had left and he couldn’t even blame it on McGarrett. Danny ignored her as best he could, ignored the way Kono, Chin and especially Steve had started shooting him wary, possibly concerned glances when they thought he didn’t see them, and hoped like hell she’d go away before he cracked and was _put_ away.

Two weeks into his new brand of Hawai’ian hell was when it got even worse. He was elbow deep in flour one night, making his Nonna’s fettuccine alfredo (he deserved comfort food, damn it, he had a ghost _haunting_ his ass) when Mrs. Kekoa had the audacity to suggest he add Spam for a special treat, and Danny exploded. It was involuntary. Spam. In alfredo! He would defy anyone with a drop of Italian blood running through his or her veins to remain silent over such an atrocious suggestion. He lost his shit and finally addressed his admittedly sweet but definitely irritating undead friend directly, with volume set to McGarrett-driving-like-a-maniac-on-a-quote-unquote-road high. He wasn’t proud of himself.

“How about I turn you into Spam?” he’d shouted.

Mrs. Kekoa had simply smiled and said, “Progress!”

Unfortunately, he found out immediately what she’d meant. Him looking at her, speaking to her had burst the proverbial door wide open. He’d given her a free pass. The cat was out of the bag. Et cetera, et cetera. Mrs. Kekoa ceased her occasional pop-ins and pulled up an imaginary sofa. She plagued him all day, every day. She didn’t even go away at night sometimes, settling herself at the head of his bed as she regaled him with stories of her youth and how her husband used to _suk suk_ all night long … Danny sought refuge in his own skull at those stories, especially once he had asked Kono to translate _suk suk_ for him, just to know if he was off base deducing it from Mrs. Kekoa’s context. That wasn’t humiliating, no. 

Danny became skilled at mental la-la-las. He bought earplugs. He tuned out her discussion of the weather, botany, kids these days and pretty much any given subject possible, but mostly and aggravatingly, it was about her relationship with her husband, who died in a car accident twenty years before her own fateful elevator shaft trip. The guy was apparently into marathon sex.

At least tuning out was the plan.

Out in the field it was easy. Dear, kindly Mrs. Kekoa didn’t much care for blood and guts, so crime scenes were no ghost zones. The tedium of the real detective work was too much for her as well, so she toddled off for parts unknown whenever she was bored. Or whenever, if he were going to figure out her pattern, Danny wasn’t with Steve. For as exhausted as he was from fending her existence off, Danny relished the fast pace of Five-0 more than ever. He volunteered for legwork any chance he got, which at first the rest of the team gave him with delight. It didn’t take long for them to figure something was up, but as long as no one said anything, Danny was going to ride it out.

Okay. So ghosts were probably, actually, legitimately authentic. Danny was resigned to that, though he would take to his own any inkling of that belief. Oh shit, what if he died and didn’t just stop? What if he…? He clenched his jaw and resisted the urge to stink-eye Mrs. Kekoa. This ghost thing was fucking with his head too much.

See, as much as he would like to always be on the go, there were those times when that wasn’t possible. Paperwork, for example. Final case wrap-ups. Abnormally slow days.

“Oh, the paperwork my Hinano would bring home during tax season,” Mrs. Kekoa waxed poetic about her apparently very virile certified public accountant husband.

Danny gritted his teeth. An hour ago he’d made the mistake of engaging Mrs. Kekoa in a minor argument, forgetting in his extreme exhaustion that blinds had to be closed in order to work as intended. The look on Kono’s face would have been pretty hilarious if directed at someone else, and Chin’s perturbation had been high, as very high as his eyebrows when he caught Danny in the men’s room trying to hide his wares from Mrs. Kekoa, who laughed because she’d already seen it. Danny knew better than to let his crazy shine through at work and he was still mad at himself for slipping, even as he knew he was going to slip again soon.

“You should have seen it. Piles and piles everywhere. I swear, if I hadn’t loved him so much, I would have had a bonfire with all those forms. The way he would drone on and on about tax laws, as if it was the most fascinating thing in the world. I guess that’s part of love, isn’t it, putting up with the eccentricities and the plain old monotony sometimes.”

With increasing frequency, Mrs. Kekoa talked about the drudge of her life with Hinano. Danny felt like he could think of the guy by the first name. They’d probably be pals. If good ol’ Hinano were still alive or, hell, if he were a ghost like his wife, Danny was pretty sure the man wouldn’t have ever droned on about anything; Mrs. Kekoa’s constant jabbering wouldn’t allow for it. 

“Okay, I give up,” Danny said, interrupting Mrs. Kekoa. He threw his pen onto the disarray of paper. He covered his face with his hands, pressed his fingertips into his eyes. “What do you want? Why are you _here_?”

“Uh, I was going to see if you wanted to come over. Beer, maybe some food,” Steve said, sounding puzzled and like he stood at the door of Danny’s office. 

“Oh.” Danny dropped his hands and waited for the spots to dissipate. “Sorry. What?”

“You asked why I was here, I invited you to hang out with me for awhile tonight.” 

Steve stared at him, eyes searched his face with such intensity that Danny knew he was a second away from squirming. Mrs. Kekoa, as per usual, started her ghostly touchy-feely thing, which only made a weird pit form in his stomach. He wasn’t so far out of his mind that he couldn’t refrain from shouting for her to take her ethereal hands off, but it was a close thing. The last thing he needed was some alone time with Steve right now, not when he was this punchy.

“Yeah, sure,” he said. “Now?”

“Now’s good. You can finish that stuff tomorrow.”

Steve gave him a smile that wasn’t quite his customary thousand-watt panty-melter. Instead, it was at least half relief, which was something Danny might try to figure out under other circumstances. He didn’t have the energy. Mrs. Kekoa’s smile, on the other hand, could rival the sun’s rays. Damn it. 

He followed Steve mutely, vaguely aware of Kono and Chin giving them odd looks. Most of his focus was elsewhere. Namely, on Mrs. Kekoa’s left hand, which was ghosting across Steve’s ass. He was fairly sure the main goal of her afterlife was to torture him. Well, mission accomplished, he thought as he sank into the passenger seat of his own car. Of course he was going to Steve’s. One of Steve’s eccentricities that Danny had learned to tolerate – not love, except kind of – was the usurpation of the role as driver. It didn’t make sense, yet they sometimes carpooled even when it wasn’t necessary. Danny was firmly in the reducing-carbon-footprint camp as far as explanations went. 

Whatever, okay, it didn’t matter. Out of the corner of his eye, Danny kept seeing Steve look over at him like he wanted to say something. He was slower on the uptake than usual, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t come to the regrettable conclusion that this wasn’t just a casual after-hours buddy session. 

It wasn’t too late to beg off, take his car and go home, but when they got to Steve’s, Danny got out and went in behind Steve. He accepted the beer, accepted the seat on the small beach. Accepted that Mrs. Kekoa was still there, but blessedly quiet for a change, eyes rapturously on Steve, then him, then back to Steve. He was glad for the silence, at least, but he was too tired and weirded out by his doubtful guest and he wanted it to…

“Stop,” he muttered. “Just stop.”

“Stop what, man?” Steve asked, then poked at his knee.

“I wasn’t. Nothing. I didn’t mean anything.”

Steve exhaled loudly and, despite the susurration of waves against the shore, Danny could hear it was slightly uneven. He dared a look at his partner, who stared at him with naked concern. Oh. So he’d been sucking at hiding this nonsense a lot more than he’d thought. He had to avert his eyes, bobbed his head down to stare at the sand. 

“Danny, what’s going on with you lately?” Steve ran a hand through his hair, set his beer down and turned his body toward Danny. “You’ve been off. We’re all worried.”

If Steve only knew that right now Mrs. Kekoa was petting his arm like he was a puppy or something, then he’d know what was going on. That way, Danny wouldn’t be the only one who’d lost his marbles. Maybe he should just tell Steve everything. He almost chuckled at the idea. 

“Such a nice boy,” Mrs. Kekoa murmured. “Handsome, too.” 

“You’re not yourself. You’re exhausted and it’s taking its toll.” Steve chewed on the inside of his cheek for a second. His eyes were cautious, and so damned worried. “When was the last time you had a decent night’s sleep, anyway?”

“Been awhile,” Danny said. He looked pointedly at Mrs. Kekoa. “I’ve had a lot on my mind. I’m sorry, I didn’t think it was affecting my work that badly.”

“It’s not that so much, you’re fine. We’ve got your back. Just, tell me what it is. You know we … _I_ will do anything I can to help.”

“I don’t think you’d believe me it if I did.” Danny leaned back, tipped his head towards the sky. “There isn’t anything you can do to help.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure, _keiki_ ,” Mrs. Kekoa said. “You know the best thing about Hinano was that he knew exactly how to comfort me when I needed it. We were opposites, he and I, but ah! So good together.”

“I can’t if you won’t even tell me. Please, Danny. It’s _killing_ me to see you so strung out. So tired. You look like how I was after …” Steve trailed off, swallowing the rest of that sentence with some difficulty. He cleared his throat. “I want to be there for you, the way you’ve always been there for me.”

Danny blinked a few times. He wasn’t sure, wasn’t one hundred percent positive, but he swore he detected something besides friendship in Steve’s tone. He … could it be that simple? That all of Mrs. Kekoa’s tales of her married life weren’t about her married life at all? She’d prattled on trying to give him a message. He felt his cheeks flush just a little. If this had all been about this moment, then surely there had to be a more direct way to tend to this unfinished business. But the unfinished business was supposed to be hers, not his.

“Why?” Danny whispered, looking over Steve’s shoulder, at his annoying specter.

Steve stared at him in disbelief and regret and then cast his eyes out to the ocean. He looked like he was fighting an internal battle.

“When I encountered you, I sensed you were alone but had wishes not to be,” Mrs. Kekoa said with a modest shrug. “I always was fairly intuitive. And then I saw you with your friends, with _your_ commander, and I knew. One isn’t allowed to tell all, one can only guide those who have need of enlightenment. I believe our paths were meant to cross.”

She smiled and patted him on the shoulder. Danny felt the touch, and it was warm rather than cold like the so-called experts said it would be.

“Now, if it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll go back to my gardening.”

And, just like that, Mrs. Kekoa winked out of existence, at least as far as Danny was concerned. In a daze, he thought he should post a sign outside of her former apartment complex, warning people about the ghost in the giant hat. He realized, though, that Steve was speaking.

“…And because I have this thing. In my _heart_ , Danny,” Steve said, he waved his hands about. “And it’s okay that you don’t feel the same, in the same way. It is. But I need you to know that I would do anything for you, and if you’re hurting, I want to fix it.”

Danny reached over, captured one of Steve’s hands mid-gesticulation and held it tight. He smiled at the way Steve froze and stared at him, and, yeah, so maybe Danny believed in ghosts and they weren’t all so scary. Maybe some of them were annoying, ulcer-inducing pains in the ass that were also far too wise.

“Steve,” Danny said. “Hey.”


End file.
